


Back From the Dead

by PiperWrightNumberOneFan



Series: Fallout 4 - New Beginnings [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/F, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Female Character, LGBTQ Themes, Missing Persons, Mystery, POV Female Character, Queer Friendly, Queer Themes, Romance, Strong Female Characters, The Railroad (Fallout)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-27
Updated: 2020-07-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 13:53:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23879116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PiperWrightNumberOneFan/pseuds/PiperWrightNumberOneFan
Summary: This fic uses the alignments from one of my save files (Female Sole Survivor named Eileen, romanced Piper Wright, aligned with the Railroad / friendly with the Minutemen).Following the ending of Fallout 4, the Sole Survivor moves in with her girlfriend Piper Wright in Diamond City, leaving Sanctuary in the hands of Preston Garvey and Codsworth. Just when they've begun to settle into their new lives, an unexpected visitor shakes up a long-held truth in the Commonwealth.
Relationships: Female Sole Survivor/Piper Wright
Series: Fallout 4 - New Beginnings [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1742602
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ####  **Spoiler Warning!**
> 
> This fic contains major spoilers for the following quest lines and locations in Fallout 4:  
> -The main quest line, including the game's ending (Railroad / Minutemen / Brotherhood of Steel alignment)  
> -Piper's post-game companion quest "In Sheep's Clothing"  
> -Quests and story events received for aligning with the Railroad, up to and including the game's ending  
> -Computer logs and holotapes found at University Point

A growing rain shower was hammering down on the metal roof of Publick Occurrences. With how sound bounced around the walls inside the ramshackle building, it was more apt to imagine we were caught in a storm of bullets. I admit, the sound unnerved me at first. But as I came to spend many days and many nights inside these walls, I got to where I barely paid it any mind. I looked up to the ceiling, tracing the wavy pattern of the metal with my eyes. _Nat should be in any minute now,_ I thought. _As soon as paper sales taper off ‘cause of the rain. Then she’ll come in. And not a moment sooner._

In front of me, pacing back and forth, her feet loudly colliding with the metal floor, was the woman I loved: Piper Wright. Fearless journalist and the owner and operator of _Publick Occurrences_ , the finest newspaper in all of Diamond City. Well, _Publick Occurrences_ was also the only paper in Diamond City, though that didn’t diminish its value an atom in my eyes.  


“Piper? Hon’?” I asked. “What’s wrong? Did the printing press finally go?”  
“No, it’s fine still.”  
“Okay, so what’s wrong?”  
“I’m just…ugh!” Piper shook her head in frustration.  
“Come sit down with me, put your feet up. Tell me what’s wrong.”  
“In a minute, Blue, I’m just…ugh! I’m so bored all of a sudden.”  
“Bored? How?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Isn’t the paper doing better than ever since we found out McDonough was a synth? People are eating that up faster than most people in this city eat anything. That should be giving us plenty to do.”  
“Oh, it is. We’re finally slowing down after two straight weeks of nonstop reprinting.”  
“But you’re still bored?”  
“Yes!”  
“Hmm.” I got up off the couch and walked over to where Piper was standing. As she looked up at me, I gently took her favorite hat off her head and kneaded it in my hands. _I should take it over to Becky soon. The holes are only getting bigger._ Satisfied, I flipped it onto my head and laughed.  
“Blue?” Piper asked. “Um, what are you doing?”  
“I don’t know. I just kind of felt like doing this. I didn’t want to see you so frustrated anymore.” I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her in close, still laughing.  
“Well, thanks, Blue. I appreciate that,” Piper said with a smile. She reached out to hold my waist.  
“You know, Yefim has been asking if I could poke around some local breweries to scrounge up more Gwinnett recipes. And Desdemona probably has tons of work piled up for me. We could go talk to either of them?”  
“Hmm…maybe. But I’m kind of looking for the next great adventure, the next big scoop to dig up, you know? It’s already been a month since we destroyed the Institute. I’m antsy.”  
“I can’t even say I’m surprised anymore that you’re antsy to get back out in the line of fire. Literally.”  
“And that’s why I love you.”

There wasn’t any time for me to reply. As I opened my mouth to say “I love you” back, the front door flew open and crashed against the living room wall. It sounded like cymbals crashing together an inch from my ear. We froze where we stood and slowly, hesitantly, looked over to the open doorway. The rain was coming down harder. Even with the roof over our front porch, a trickle of rainwater had swept inside and began racing for our only nice carpet. I was about to scold Nat for throwing the door open when I noticed it wasn’t Nat at all. 

A girl—a teenager, it looked like—was haunting the entryway of Publick Occurrences. She wore a ripped jumpsuit that might have belonged to a Vault, once, and had a canvas bag slung over her back. Getting a read on her face was difficult because her hair hung in front of her face and was stuck there because of the rain. If she lived in Diamond City, then I had never seen her before. New faces rolled into town almost daily, but they usually speed-walk past our building before Nat can flag them down; not as much anymore since McDonough fled town, though. She looked soaked to the bone, whoever she was. What could be so important that traveling in this rain seemed like a good option? 

Slowly, the girl peeled her hair from her face, revealing the eyes of someone who hadn’t slept in days. She was definitely older than Nat, and her eyes bore holes in my skull.

“Um, excuse me?” She asked. “Which one of you is Piper Wright?”  
“That’d be me,” Piper said, not letting go of my waist. “Do you mind telling me why you threw my door open like that?”  
“Oh, um, sorry. I wasn’t thinking. This rain won’t let up, and the guard at the gates told me to come right you if I had any problems…”  
“Danny sent you?” Piper asked. The girl nodded. “All right, come inside. I can’t leave someone standing out by home plate with nobody to turn to. Blue, could you grab her a towel, please?”  
“Of course. Right away.”  


I ran to the bathroom sink and rooted through the cabinet. _Thank goodness we didn’t have to do laundry today._ It only took a moment to grab a towel. Halfway back to the living room, I stopped and grabbed a second one. _A towel for her chair won’t hurt, either._  


The girl had already wandered over to Nat’s armchair when I rejoined them in the living room. I handed one towel to her and put the other down on the chair, then stepped back to give her some breathing room. “Can I get you anything to drink? We have water, Nuka-Cola, and liquor. None of it’s cold, though.”  
“No thank you. I’m all set for now.” I nodded and took my seat next to Piper on the loveseat. The girl’s eyes hadn’t changed, but her features looked a bit softer in the light. My curiosity about where she came from was growing by the second.  
“So,” Piper began, “first of all, who are you?”  
“My name is Frida. I’m…well, I guess you could say I’m a wanderer. But I’m a wandering electrician, also. I fix anything from radio towers to hand radios to light switches, also.”  
Piper raised an eyebrow. “A wandering electrician? That’s awfully specific.” Frida nodded. “Well, you already know who I am, seeing as Danny steered you here. This is Blue, my partner in crime,” she said, wrapping her arm around me.  
I cleared my throat loudly. “Ah, Blue is just what Piper calls me, Frida. I’m Eileen.”  
“That jumpsuit…it’s Vault-Tec, right?”  
I nodded. “That’s right. Yours is too, from the looks of it.”  
“It is, but I roughed it up after I found it. I don’t need the attention that comes with it. It just makes work easier.” Frida’s eyes darted around the room, like she was only now noticing her surroundings. “So, Ms. Wright, are you the one who…helps people, around here?”  
“Sure. But most anyone around here will help out if you have some caps.”  
“I, um, need very specific help.”  
“Specific help?” I asked.  
Frida nodded. Her voice shrunk. “Ms. Wright, do you handle missing person cases?”  


The room went completely silent. I swallowed hard. Not because Piper would be fazed by the question, but because whatever lay on the other side of that question, we wouldn’t stop until the last rock had been turned over.  


“Absolutely,” Piper finally responded. “I take on any case, but especially missing person cases.”  
“Really?” Frida asked.  
Piper rummaged through her jacket pockets and got out her pen and paper. “Yes. Let’s start from the beginning, okay? Who’s gone missing?”  
“So, um, the thing is, she was missing. But now I think she’s back. Her name is Jacq Spencer. She was my friend back when I lived at University Point a couple years ago.”  
“Okay, Jacq Spenc—wait, Jacq Spencer? I’m sorry to tell you this, Frida, but I’m pretty sure she’s dead.”  
“How do you know?”  
“We found a skeleton near her terminal at University Point, in the building where she was living,” I explained. “Obviously we can’t be totally sure, but the Institute was after her. They didn’t make mistakes.”  


Frida had a sad smile on her face. “That’s what I thought too, at first.”  
“What changed?” Piper asked. Her expression grew serious.  
“I had recently come back from the outskirts of the Commonwealth to try and find more steady work. I created a portable radio beacon that can track long-range and low frequency signals, but it only works in the Commonwealth and takes a lot of energy to use. I was monitoring it before bed one day when I picked up Morse code on repeat.”  
“How do you know the message wasn’t for someone else?”  
“Most radios these days are junk. No offense,” she said quietly, with a glance over at our busted radio. “They can’t pick up a frequency like that. The only way you could pick it up is with a Pip-Boy or a custom rig, like mine. I think she knew I’d hear it.”  
“Okay, okay. What did the message say?”  
“Um, it said, ‘survivors of the University Point attack: come to WRVR. We will have revenge.”  
“And were you able to tell where the signal was coming from?”  
Frida nodded. Her voice dialed back up to normal volume. “It looks like it originates from University Point. Makes sense, I guess.”  
“One more question, Frida. How long ago did you pick up the signal?”  
“About a week ago. I walked here from my last job, fixing up the radio tower at the remote outpost on the Commonwealth’s northern border.”  


The gears started turning in my head. I looked down at my Pip-Boy and quickly navigated to the radio and cranked the dial as low as it would go, lower than the frequency the Institute had used up until recently for teleportation. Eventually, a beeping signal crackled through my Pip-Boy, interrupting Piper and Frida’s conversation.  


“Is this the signal you were talking about, Frida? This beeping?”  
“Yes! That’s it! So Pip-Boys can pick it up…”  
“I thought you said for sure they could—”  
“I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. But now I am. Jacq has to be behind that, I know it. Nobody else would do something like that.”  
Piper underlined some of her notes and closed her notebook, satisfied. “Well, we’re familiar with University Point. We’ve been there before on business. Me and Blue will head out first thing tomorrow morning and make our way there. Maybe Jacq left some clues behind at your old stomping grounds.”  
“Thank you so much, both of you. Really. If you couldn’t help me, I wouldn’t know who else to turn to.”  
“You’re welcome. Helping people is what we do. Right, Blue?”  
“That’s right.”  


Frida was quiet for a while. It looked there was something on her mind that she hadn’t said or found the courage to say. Piper and I waited, not wanting to push her. With everything that had just happened, I didn’t even notice until that moment that Piper’s hat was still on my head. I carefully took it off my head and slipped it back onto hers, pulling at one end to balance it like I was hanging a painting on the wall.  


“Um, Ms. Wright, how much do I owe you for helping me? I have caps. I can pay.”  
“Nothing. I don’t help people for money. Whatever happens, we’re going to see this thing through ‘til the end. Okay?”  
“Okay. Thank you again.”  
“Hey, you’re welcome.” Piper slowly stood up. “Do you have a place to stay yet?”  
Frida shook her head. “No, I just got here today. And I don’t know the city very well. I’m sure I can find something, though.” She stood up as well, moving to stand beside the armchair.  
“Hang on just a minute, Frida.”  
“Blue?”

I dashed up the stairs to grab the keys for Kellogg’s old house. If Jacq really was dead, then this was an undoubtedly horrible idea. But I wanted to know for sure that Frida was safe. Besides, nobody was living in the old heap of junk. The keys were hanging on a pegboard above Piper’s computer. Just where I left them. I turned on a dime and hurtled back down the stairs.

“I, ah, happen to own my own house here in town,” I lied. “But I don’t use it much since I live here with Piper. You can stay there while you’re in Diamond City. It’s got a sturdy roof, drinkable water, and enough food to last a couple days.”  
“Are you sure, Ms., um, Ms. Eileen?”  
“Absolutely. Come on, we can show you the way there. This city’s a bit of a maze if it’s your first visit. Or your fifteenth,” I said, laughing. Frida didn’t laugh, but I caught a smile on her face that lasted just long enough to let me know it was genuine.


	2. Chapter 2

I watched as Piper quietly put her empty bowl of noodles down onto the counter. The rain had finally moved on after we got Frida settled in Kellogg’s old house, which gave us a window to skip making dinner and eat at Takahashi’s noodle stand. It was just the two of us tonight; Nat was eating with a friend from school. I ended up racing through dinner--I didn’t think I was so hungry today. Piper, for her part, continued eating at her normal speed through to the last bite. She didn’t even notice I finished well before her. She had a look on her face that I was accustomed to noticing by now: a firm, pensive stare that cut through whatever she was looking at. If I looked closely, I could see each individual gear in her head moving and turning with the next in tandem. While I watched Takahashi reach for Piper’s bowl to clean it underneath the counter, I made up my mind not to press Piper for her thoughts. If she wanted me to know, then she would tell me.

“Blue, do you think this is a good idea?” she eventually asked.  
“Do I think what’s a good idea, hon’?”  
“Putting Frida up in you-know-who’s old house.”

I glanced over my shoulder once, twice. Most of the shop owners were heading in for the day. It was just the two of us sitting at Takahashi’s. “I don’t think it’s a _bad_ idea.”  
“But what if she finds out who that house belonged to?”  
“Would she really make the connection? She probably doesn’t even know who you-know-who is.”  
Piper lowered her voice. “What happens if we end up in that small chance where Jacq isn’t alive? Then we have to explain who murdered her, Blue, and that the person responsible owned that house before you did.”  
“Okay. I see what you mean.”  
“So what do we do?”  
“Well, we have two options,” I said, sticking out my pointer and middle fingers. “Option one: find Jacq and bring her back to Diamond City. Option two: lie through our teeth profusely.”  
“Blue, I don’t want to lie to Frida.”  
“I don’t either. But the Dugout is no place for a frightened, potentially traumatized teenager wandering the Commonwealth by herself. Vadim and Yefim are good friends, but they only have so much control over the clientele. You know? And another thing. Where are her parents? Has she shot a gun before? I didn’t see a gun on her the whole time she was with us. I couldn’t sleep tonight without knowing she had a roof over her head and a locked door at her back.”

Piper was looking deep into my eyes. From my peripheral vision, I saw she was kneading her hands, one onto the other, in her lap. “You’re acting differently,” she whispered.  
“I’m not,” I whispered back.  
“You are. We’ve helped so many people across the Commonwealth. We put our lives on the line constantly. New travelers come by all the time, and you point them to the Dugout. Or to Nick. What’s different, Blue? You can tell me.”  
“Nothing’s different.”  
“Are you sure?”  
“I’m sure.”  
“But, it’s just that you’re acting like—”

“Thanks, Takahashi!” I said, maybe a little too loudly, as I got up from my stool. I started walking back to Publick Occurrences, but not so fast that Piper couldn’t catch up. I listened as she slipped off the stool and jogged after me, reaching out for my right arm. She caught hold of it just outside our front door.

“Blue. Hey. Did I do something wrong?” Her voice was quiet.  
“No. And I’m not mad at you, to be clear.”  
“Okay. You just don’t want to talk about it?”  
I nodded. “I know that I can talk to you about anything, I just…feel very raw right now. Like what I’m avoiding telling you about is scraping me up on the inside, and I don’t know how to feel about it yet. I’m not ready to let it out. Now that the Institute’s gone…I don’t know, I’ve been charging headfirst into danger for the past three months. Now I can stop running. So what do I do instead?”

“We don’t have to do anything, you know.” Piper dipped her voice down into the husky range she knew I liked, brushing my shoulder with her hand. “When Nat’s off at school one day, and it’s just the two of us, we can…you know…”  
My heart skipped a beat. “Really?”  
“Well, yeah. We’re dating. That kind of…comes with the territory, eventually, you know?” Piper paused. She studied my face. “You seem surprised.”  
“Oh, well, sort of—I guess I got accustomed to you being really nervous when I was flirting with you.”  
“What! I don’t remember doing that!”  
“Oh no? There was the time we cleared out the Combat Zone. And that one parking garage on the way to Salem. _And_ the night we met Magnolia at the Third Rail.”

Piper’s face turned beet red. She wrapped her right arm around me and nestled her face into my shoulder. “That’s not fair, Blue!” she said, her words muffled by my Vault suit. “You know I like Magnolia…”  
I nodded. “She is pretty hot.”  
“Blue! How do you manage to always say the quiet part out loud?”  
“Sorry, Piper, I’m just teasing. You’re so cute when you’re embarrassed.”  
“I guess that counts for something.”  
“Come on, let’s go inside. Nat should be home soon.”


	3. Chapter 3

I woke up the next morning to someone shaking my shoulder back and forth, back and forth, like the steady motion of a rocking horse. Reluctantly, I pried my eyelids open from sleep to find Piper sitting on the edge of the bed. Her hand was still resting on my shoulder.

“Oh, Blue! You’re awake,” Piper said, sounding almost surprised.  
“Well, yes. I was steadily rocked awake.”  
“Sorry about that. I’m just excited to get back on the road.”  
“Mm.” I pushed myself up to meet Piper’s line of sight and rubbed my eyes. “You’re already dressed?”  
“Yeah.”  
“What time is it? Did I sleep in?”  
Piper looked over at the radio’s clock. “It’s only a little later than normal. You seemed tired last night, so I wanted to let you sleep.”  
“Is Nat off to school already?”  
Piper nodded. “Yeah. It’s just us. I did some shopping this morning so Nat can keep herself fed while we’re gone. We’re good to go.”

I leaned forward and pulled Piper into a long kiss, threading my fingers through her hair. Yet again, I found myself wondering how she keeps her lips so soft in an apocalyptic wasteland like this. _However she does it, I’ll keep reaping the benefits._ I lingered on the last bit of the kiss until I broke away, letting my hands slide down to Piper's waist.

“Wow…” Piper said, stunned. She brought a hand to her lips. “Uh, good morning to you too, Blue.”  
“Good morning, Piper. Your hair’s getting a bit scruffy,” I said, trailing down to the uneven ends of her hair gently batting at them, back and forth. Her hair had grown past its usual length so quickly; or maybe the past three months were just one really, really long day.  
“Do you not like it?”  
I shook my head. “I didn’t know if you wanted to grow it out or if you just hadn’t noticed it getting so long. I like your hair however long or short you want to keep it.”  
Piper kissed me this time. “You’re so sweet, Blue. No, I noticed, but I didn’t want to put myself near sharp objects if I didn’t have to when McDonough was always up my ass. Now that he’s gone, I’ll probably cut it short once this mission is all over.”  
“Oh? How short?”  
Piper slipped off the edge of the bed and walked over to our standing bedroom mirror. She tugged at the ends of her hair, drawing them up to different lengths before dropping them and doing it again. “Hmm. Maybe just beneath my chin?”  
“Ooh, that would be cute.”  
“You think so?”  
“Absolutely. It’ll give me less to grab onto, but you’d look so cute.”

Piper’s face turned bright red. “W-w-well, so many big things have been happening…I thought it might be nice to mark them with a change.”  
I nodded. “I like that idea. Maybe I should ask John to cut my hair too.”  
“Now that you mention it, Blue, your hair’s looked exactly the same ever since I first met you. Has it grown at all? I don’t feel like it has. Maybe your time being frozen has something to do with it.”

I was so amused with the idea of Piper believing my hair follicles were frozen in time that I almost didn’t want to correct her. “No, it’s not that…there’s a good reason why it looks the same. Remember the time we fought those Forged, over in Saugus?”  
“Oh yeah, that was a lot of fun. What about it?”  
“While you were searching their bodies outside of the ironworks, I could smell something burning…the bottom two inches or so of my hair got singed by a rogue burst of fire. I was so embarrassed you would notice and think I looked weird that I ducked behind a rock, made sure you weren’t looking, and sheared off the ends with a pocketknife.”  
Piper turned to me and stared, wide-eyed. “I never noticed. That’s incredible! How did you do that so fast?”  
“Oh…just some pre-war skills, let’s say.”

Like the origin of my face scars, there were some things I’d rather Piper not know. I got up from bed and walked past Piper to our shared closet; my Vault suit was hanging up right where I left it, where I always leave it before we go to bed. I slipped my Vault suit from its hanger and suited up, fishing out a clean pair of socks from my drawer after.

“You weren’t a hairdresser pre-war, were you?” Piper asked. “That would be cool if you were. You could easily rival John here in town, if you wanted to.”  
I laughed, shaking my head, as I knelt down to slip on my boots. “No, I wasn’t. I was a lawyer, way back then. We hung my diploma up by the front door of our house and everything. If the bombs hadn’t dropped when they did, I’d have been looking for a job…probably in this area, I guess. Maybe Cambridge or Concord, if I was lucky, to be closer to Shaun.”

Piper nodded, taking in the information. I kept an eye on her as I walked over to the mannequin where I left my armor when it wasn’t in use. One by one, I started to slip on each piece and strap them in, wiping out a scuff or mark if I could see it. Though she was trying to hide it, I could tell Piper wanted to know more but wasn’t sure if she should ask or not. She always gets a certain glint in her eyes when a question is on the tip of her tongue. I went back to strapping in my armor. 

“And, um, what about your late husband?” she finally asked, hesitantly, like she might scare away the words by speaking them too loudly. “What did he do? For work, I mean.”

I paused. Talking about Nate with anyone is still difficult. Piper is no exception. I still don’t have the heart to tell her he never got a proper burial. “He…” I paused again as we moved downstairs. “He…was ex-military. Army, to be specific. He was a decorated veteran, then. Still is, I guess. There’s nobody left to take the medals away from him anymore even if they wanted to. So that’s how it is. He is a decorated veteran.” I had to say it again, to reassure myself as well as Piper.

We briefly split up when we moved off the bottom step. I was silently grateful that Piper didn’t ask any more questions about Nate; maybe I could take her back to the Vault, someday, when my heart has sewn itself back together some more. I wonder if Piper knows that she learned how to sew after we met.

Reba (Reba II, specifically) was waiting for me in the corner of our living room next to the door. We kept pistols up in the bedroom, just in case, but a sniper rifle won’t do much good at point blank range. So she stays here in the corner until I need her. I slung Reba over my back, letting the familiar weight center me. Most of my fancier weapons were still collecting dust back in Sanctuary, in my old house, except for the ones Piper wanted for herself. Preston and the rest of the settlers up there can make better use of them then I can now. In a better world they’d never have to be used, but we’re certainly not in a better world yet. Not by a long shot. There’s still so much work to be done…I wonder if we’ll ever get there.

“Hey, you ready to go?” Piper suddenly re-appeared next to me.  
“What? Oh, yeah, sure. I just need to see Arturo and get some more ammo before we leave town.”  
“Can do. Is everything all right?”  
“I think so. Why?”  
“You had that faraway look in your eyes again.”  
“Oh. I was just thinking about the past. That’s all.”  
Piper reached out and squeezed my shoulder. She had a soft smile on her face. I was grateful for the second time that day she didn’t ask any more questions.


	4. Chapter 4

The air in the Commonwealth always left me with the unmistakable taste of dust in my mouth. It doesn’t matter what time of day it is, or where we are, or what we’re doing: dust. I just can’t seem to get used to it. As Piper and I walked slowly out of Diamond City and onto the road, my mind was stuck on the bottles of water we had packed for the trip. There’s been talk around the city that we’re headed for a water shortage with how many new settlers we’ve had; hopefully, with McDonough gone, the city can finally start addressing the blatant problems we’ve been facing. _That might be something we could go out and do,_ I thought to myself. _Find a new water supply and Piper might get in people’s good graces. For a little while, anyways._ I’d much rather have her at home with me then spending another stint in the Piper Suite. To her credit, she hasn’t been back there since we started dating.

There wasn’t a direct road to University Point from Diamond City, but if we cut a straight line through nature, we could be there in a few hours. I checked my Pip-Boy as we stepped out past the last layer of Diamond City security. I wanted to steer clear of the hospital in Milton if we could. It was still overrun with Super Mutants—the whole town is—and we don’t need that kind of trouble. Maybe I could convince Dez to get some agents in there and clear it out for a new safehouse. Especially since University Point is still compromised. I feel guilty that I haven’t been back to base since the Institute was destroyed…my mind’s just been other places. I think Dez knows that. Heavies are in short supply, though. I know I’ll be called back to work soon.

We passed the familiar, rotting remains of an old diner outside the city limits and kept pressing forward. The first half of the journey passed in the blink of an eye even though we were walking at a slow clip. Piper had been quiet most of the way, which wasn’t totally unusual—she often used the long, boring stretches of walking we went on to get her thoughts in a row. A sudden gust of anxiety swept over me as I thought about Frida again. I couldn’t hold onto that thought for long; a sudden burst of gunshots rang out like fireworks into the air, and then another, followed by scattered yelling. I ran up the hill as fast as I could with Piper hot on my heels.

“Blue, what’s going on?”  
I pointed to a small camp below us, on the road. “There’s a Railroad checkpoint down there. Looks like raiders are attacking them. Let’s help out.”  
“I’m on it.”

Piper unholstered her pistols. She nodded at me and started sliding down the hill, looking for a rock to take cover behind. I readied Reba II and started scoping out the area. A group of five raiders were rushing the Railroad agents from the east; two were wearing makeshift power armor, but the other three were wearing the usual scant raider armor. There were only three Railroad agents at the checkpoint, and not much cover for them to hide behind.

I breathed in deeply, lined up my scope, and fired my first shot. The bullet whizzed through the air and connected with the skull of one of the raiders; he flew back against the bed of an abandoned truck and went limp. _One down. Keep an eye on Piper._ I went to line up my next shot when a flurry of bullets raced toward me. Ducking behind the rock, I got a quick glimpse at where they came from: our new friends in power armor had caught on to our arrival. Around me, the air was clouded by shouts flying in all directions. When I got a chance to peek over the rock again, I took a quick shot and (thankfully) managed to take out another raider. _Two down._

“Blue, tag her!” Piper yelled, pointing to one of the raiders in power armor. Her helmet had broken apart, leaving her head exposed. I watched and waited for the Railroad agents to distract her with covering fire before I took my shot. Another direct hit. I could hear the crack as the bullet connected and winced for what felt like an eternity. I can handle the radiation. I can handle the untimely destruction of humanity. But I still can’t stomach how often you need to kill to survive in the Commonwealth. _How did Nate do it? Firing a gun so often. I would give up a lot to never have to fire a gun again._

I glanced over at Piper again. With the one-two, one-two rhythm of her pistols, she took out the last raider not in power armor without even blinking. The Railroad agents seemed to have finally noticed we were on their side and managed to overwhelm the last raider. I took a quick, sharp breath. Nobody on our side was injured. Thank goodness. I ran down the hill to catch up with Piper, who was already walking down to talk with the Railroad agents. She heard me coming and waited before wrapping an arm around my shoulder, content. Knowing Piper was safe meant that I could breathe again.

The look on the agents’ face was something like surprise. Or maybe awe? No, it couldn’t be awe. We were just doing what we always did; it was nothing to admire, necessarily. One of the agents stepped forward to meet us. She was taller than me, with cropped blonde hair and a way of carrying her own weight that exuded confidence. These three must be fairly new recruits and she must be the oldest, or at least most experienced, among them.

“Good shootin’ there, strangers,” she said. There was a bit of an accent in her voice, but I couldn’t quite place it. “Thanks for your help. They really got the jump on us.”  
“Hey, no problem. I’m glad we could help out.”  
As the agent considered what to say next, I could see one of the agents behind her grow wide-eyed when she saw me. She ran up behind the agent I was talking to and frantically whispered something in her ear, glancing over at me a few times. Eventually, something must have registered, because they both shared that expression as they looked at me.  
“Say, ma’am…do you have a Geiger counter?” she finally asked me.  
I smiled. “Mine is in the shop.”  
All three agents let out a long breath. “Oh my gosh—you’re the Professor, aren’t you? We thought it was you, but…”  
“Do I really have a reputation like that?”  
“Of course you do! Especially among the younger agents, like us. You’re the legendary heavy who took out the Institute from the inside. We all want to be like you.”  
I scratched my head sheepishly. “That’s really kind of you to say. Thank you. You don’t have to worry about being like me, though. Just do your best.”  
“I didn’t know you had a fan club, there, Professor,” Piper said, laughing.   
“They’re not my fan club, Piper. They’re my associates.” I turned back to the agents and squeezed Piper’s waist. “Don’t mind her. This is Piper, my girlfriend. She’s our ally, and she’s not cleared for classified information, just so you know. What are your names?”

The agent with blonde hair responded first. “I’m Cowboy. To my left is Shadow, and to my right is Arrow. We all joined up after we heard what you did to the Institute.”  
“We’re glad to have you on our side. I’ve been taking care of some personal business for a while now, so that’s why you haven’t seen me back at HQ. Are you on guard duty?”  
Cowboy nodded. “That’s right, ma’am. Standard operating procedure. We’re still new recruits, so we have a long way to go.”  
I scratched my head again. “Ma’am? I know I’m probably old enough to be someone’s mom, but that’s way too formal. Just “Professor” is fine.”  
“Oh! If you’re sure, then, Professor. If you don’t me askin’, where are you two headed?”  
“East of here, out to University Point. We’re on a personal mission.”  
“Best of luck you then, ma’—ah, Professor, Piper.”  
“You too. I hope our paths cross again soon,” I said with a smile.

Piper waved to Cowboy, Arrow, and Shadow, who waved back, as we parted ways. After we walked far enough to be out of earshot, Piper turned to me again. “They seem like good kids.”  
“You know, they do seem like good kids. And they’re so young! They can’t be much older than Frida. Maybe they’re the same age.” Piper gave me a look (that look) but I ignored it. “I’ll ask about them the next time I go back to HQ.”  
“I didn’t know you were so popular, Blue!”  
I laughed. “Maybe so, but you’re the only one for me.”  
“And that’s the way I like it.”

The rest of the journey went without incident. As long as you can steer clear of Milton, the path we chose is fairly settled and fairly safe, considering. University Point is nestled on the coast of the Commonwealth. Back before the bombs dropped, it was the site of one of many universities that were clustered together in the old city; hop a train or two and you could get to any of them, anywhere. The whole city was a dense network of synapses, flashing lights, and an endless number of distractions…I loved it so much. I still love it. So, so much. I guess you can’t spend some of the best years in your life in a city like this and not end up loving it. Were I not already widowed, I’d be tempted to say that I became a widow when the bombs dropped. Piper would get a kick out of that, I think.

My heart always ached a bit whenever I laid eyes on University Point again, and this time was no different. Most of the buildings had collapsed or were actively collapsing, sliding back into the ocean. The water levels have risen enough in this area that the lowest level has transformed into a marshy mixture of saltwater and detritus, and wading through it feels like trudging through a swamp. It didn’t help that this old place has weathered its fair share of attacks from the Institute, one after another, like clockwork. Piper and I have already stripped out most of the useful scrap and gear from this place. Now it’s just become an empty husk, like most buildings in the Commonwealth, since I’m one of the few people who remembers it in its glory. I hope we can rebuild it one day, when we have the time to worry about how we educate our future generations.

Piper stuck her arm out to stop me as we kept walking. I stopped so abruptly that I almost tripped over my own feet. “Hold up, Blue. You see that?”  
“See what?” I squinted and saw what Piper saw—there was someone leaning up against the wall just outside the front gate. “Oh. Yeah, I see it.”  
“Let’s walk up a little closer. See if we can get a better look before we draw guns.”  
“Right.”

As we got closer to the gates, the figure slowly came into view. He was bald, wearing a dingy three-piece suit that looked like he might have picked it up off the side of the road. His glasses were tinted--you couldn’t see his eyes at all. The hat on his head was equally dingy. It took a minute of looking at him before the recognition washed over me. How had I not realized immediately?  
“Hang on, Piper,” I said, grabbing her hand. “I know what’s going on here. Let me handle this, okay?”  
“Blue?”  
“Trust me.”  
Piper nodded. I closed the distance between me and the figure and gave a hearty wave. “Good afternoon, there, stranger!”  
The man looked up at me. He gave a polite nod. “Good afternoon.”  
“Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”  
“I suppose. No streaks of radiation in the sky today, at least.”  
I decided to make my voice even more chipper. “I know! Don’t you just love it?”  
“It’s fine, I guess.”  
“So, stranger—what brings you all the way out here?”  
“What brings any of us out here?”  
“Oh, come on now, don’t be like that. We’re all friends here.”  
The man said nothing.  
“Now, I have to say, I’ve been experiencing a problem I just can’t seem to fix. Do you think you might be able to help me out? I can pay. I have caps.”  
“Maybe. It depends.”  
“Well, I’ve lost something that’s really important to me. I was hoping you could help me find it.”  
The man said nothing again.  
“Do you have a Geiger counter?” I finally asked him.  
The man looked up at me and smiled, for a moment, before answering me. “Mine is in the shop.”

I finally started laughing—I couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Nice to see you, Deacon.”  
“Nice to see you too, Professor.” He stood up straight, pulling away from the wall outside the gate. “Do you come up with these elaborate conversational scenarios every time you recognize me just to mess with me?”  
“No, but that’s a good idea. I’ll start doing that from now on.”  
Deacon let out a long sigh. “So, what brings you out all this way, Professor? Dez still has this whole place on lockdown. We’re not using it as a safehouse still.”  
“I know. Me and Piper are here on a personal matter we were hired for.”  
“Really?”  
I nodded. “I’ll get right to it, Deacon. Has there been any intel through our channels about a strange radio broadcast originating from here?”  
Deacon looked past me at Piper. I looked back as well. She was cleaning dirt out from under her fingernails. “A broadcast? Tom’s picked up several broadcasts coming out of here, all on the same small range of signals. We don’t know which one was the first one.”  
“Shit. Has anyone come through here?”  
“Not since I’ve been standing here.”  
“Shit. I don’t like this, Deacon.”  
“What are you going to do?”  
“We still have our duty to do for the person who hired us, and we’re going to do it. No matter what we find, no matter who gets in our way. That’s how we do things. I’m not about to back out of this halfway. Is there anything else you can tell me?”  
“As far as intel? No. We’re still working on it. If you’re going in there, then I’ll take off.”  
“Are you sure?”  
Deacon nodded. “Positive.”

I turned around. “Hey, Piper!” I waved for Piper to come over where we were standing.  
“Who is this, Blue? What’s going on?”  
“It’s fine. It’s just Deacon.”  
“How did you know it was him?”  
“He makes it too easy.”  
“Oh. Hi, Deacon.”  
“Miss Wright,” Deacon said, taking off his hat. “I’m just about to head out. Good luck on your investigation in there.”  
Deacon began walking away back in the direction of the Old North Church. He stopped after a few steps; I watched the tiny wisps of dust twisting and swirling around his feet. He turned to look at me.  
“By the way, Professor…if you’re going to go turning over rocks, don’t be surprised when bugs crawl out.” His voice was low and gravelly, like he was trying to imitate someone from an old western. That was all he had to say. Piper and I were left standing there as he walked away.  
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Piper asked me, exasperated.  
“Don’t mind him. He just thinks he’s a prophet of Cassandra or something.”  
“Who’s Cassandra?”  
“Never mind.”


End file.
